Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio–a five-time James Beard award winner, Top Chef judge, and proprietor of Craft and Colicchio & Sons restaurants–is one of the best-known and respected food personalities in America today. And Colicchio has a surprising message to share with customers: He wants you to complain; he wants to hear when things aren’t right at his restaurants.
But he wants to hear that feedback now, not in a middle-of-the-night Yelp review. “It’s really hard for us if you leave unhappy and, two days later, write us a letter saying that the fish was salty or give us an unhappy Yelp review at 2:30 in the morning. We can’t help out at that point! It’s a lot better for everyone if customers feel comfortable complaining right away, if they feel like we really want to hear.”
In support of this, Colicchio makes a point of projecting a pro-customer, anti-snobbery attitude at his restaurants that allows customers to be comfortable pointing out when something isn’t right, or simply isn’t to their taste or their expectations. This kind of open attitude not only puts diners at ease, but “also helps us solve problems on the spot and save ourselves grief in the long run. We try to project an open attitude that helps customers to understand that if there is a problem, we want to hear about it. This is for everyone’s benefit.”
The dark side of chef-centricity
For Colicchio, whose cheery face, bald pate, and no-nonsense pronouncements are recognizable to even the most casual foodie, this “open attitude” is part and parcel of being customer-centric, which he contrasts with the chef-centric culture that has run amuck in some corners of dining today.
“The dark side of being chef-centric instead of customer-centric is when it hardens into an attitude of ‘We don’t change anything; you can take it or leave it,” says Colicchio. “Maybe that can work for a few chefs and a few restaurants for a short time, but ultimately it’s not the way to build a business. Instead, you need to have a staff and workplace where no isn’t in the vocabulary, where every encounter starts with the idea of ‘We’re going to say yes, and we’re going to make it happen’ as opposed to ‘I have to check with the kitchen.’
“When you have a kitchen that doesn’t get this, that is stuck in the ‘no substitutions’ mindset, it’s not going to work,” he continues. Even if the kitchen ultimately agrees to change things up, says Colicchio, the moment has been lost: “Because when a waiter’s forced to do the old ‘Let me check with the kitchen’ routine, it means that for however long it takes to get the answer from the kitchen, the guest is sitting at the table thinking, ‘They’re going to say no. They’re going to say no, I know it!’”
“Okay, Chef, you tell the customer they can’t have what they want.”
The better approach, says Colicchio, is to make sure everybody who works in his restaurants understands that the ultimate answer is going to yes; everyone in the kitchen and everyone on the waitstaff needs to understands that everything can be adapted in the interest of pleasing customers, and that "because the ultimate answer is going to be yes, it’s best to go ahead and say that yes immediately and then work with the kitchen to make it happen. You definitely don’t want to have those scenes where the waiter gets to the kitchen, and the chef down there is having a bad night and tells the waiter: ‘Get out of here. Leave me alone.’ When that happens,” says Colicchio, “I like to tell the chef, ‘Okay, you go in the dining room now, and you tell the customer no.’
“Also, once your staff understands that, no matter what, the answer is going to be yes, they can start looking at all the creative ways that you can get to that yes. When a customer says, ‘I don’t really want the broccoli raab that comes in this dish, can you substitute the peas?’ it might mean that they want to try the peas, not that they have anything against broccoli raab. It’s a very easy thing to say, “If you’d like to try the peas as well, we could do that,” and bring them a side of peas, rather than modifying the kitchen’s original intention.”
Micah Solomon recently named the "new guru of customer service excellence" by the Financial Post,
is a customer experience consultant, customer service consultant, hospitality thought leader, keynote speaker, customer service trainer, and bestselling author. Click here for two free chapters from Micah's latest book .
